


If I Could

by DesertSnowQueen



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug, Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (2017)
Genre: Additional Characters to be added, F/M, I'll just update the tags and characters as I need to, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Lack of Communication, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, There will be ML salt later on, This is fanfic, Titan!Marinette, but alas, communication issues are the number one issue in this fic, so many things would be helped if the characters would just talk to each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-29 09:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20794481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertSnowQueen/pseuds/DesertSnowQueen
Summary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng has grown up around the Miraculouses. She always knew one day she would don one and begin training to go track down the missing Butterfly and Peacock Miraculouses. That day came when she was 10 years old. Her family sent her to America, specifically to the Teen Titans, to get proper training.Some of the team are more welcoming than others.AU of Ozmav's Damian Wayne AU





	1. A New Teammate

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I've been working on whenever I hit writer's block for Keeping You Warm, and I've finally decided to start posting it. This is a different style than what I'm used to writing, as well, since I'm doing it vignette style with varying time-skips instead of a longer, more detailed story showing every side of what's happening. Chapter lengths will vary, but I'll try to keep them all around 1000 words each.
> 
> Also, I'm sure it's kind of obvious to anyone familiar with the ML fandom, but Marinette's background in this was inspired by Lenoreofraven's Legacy Marinette AU. Marinette is Fu's granddaughter, so she's always known about the Miraculouses.
> 
> Marinette is 10 and a half at the start of this and Damian is 12. I don't have specific ages for everyone else except that they're all at least a couple of years older than Damian.

“Damian! I have a job for you,” Dick said walking into his brother’s room in the Tower. “Why are you already wearing your suit? Please tell me you took it off yesterday…”

“I told you, I only take it off when I need to shower,” Damian said. Dick frowned.

“Change into clean clothes. Now,” Dick ordered. “We have a new teammate moving in today and you’re going to be helping her get settled.”

“What? Why me?”

“Because she doesn’t speak English and you’re the only one on the team who speaks French fluently. I expect you to be nice. She’s a year and a half younger than you and her family wants her to learn to use her abilities in a controlled environment.”

“But why can’t you babysit her! You speak French too!”

“I’m not fluent, Damian, and you’re not babysitting her! You’re making her feel welcome!”

“It’s forcing me to spend time with her, Grayson. It’s babysitting.”

“Well it’ll be good for you. Now change. She’ll be here soon and this isn’t up for debate.”

Damian threw a birdarang into the wall next to his brother’s head and changed into a black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans. Dick left to go wait for the new girl. When Damian was finished changing, he messed with his hair in the mirror to stall. Eventually he’d done all he could to waste time, so he huffed and dragged his feet to the living room.

He wasn’t in the living room for very long when Dick brought the new girl in with a man who was probably her grandfather. He was a short Asian man with brown eyes, grey hair, moustache, and goatee, and wore a red Hawaiian print shirt with tan pants. The girl had short black hair tied in pigtails over her shoulders, bright blue eyes, and was wearing a grey t-shirt, a pair of pink overalls, and pink flats. She was also carrying a cardboard box with what appeared to be a French bakery's logo on it.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” the man asked in Mandarin. Damian raised an eyebrow, the only indication that he was caught off guard. He thought Dick said this girl only spoke French?

“We’ll be fine, Yéye. I promise. I’m Ladybug, after all, and Ladybug can do anything,” the girl said with a proud smile and her head held high. Her grandfather smiled.

“Call home when you’re settled, but you don’t have to call every day if you don’t want to. Focus on your training and enjoy your time here,” her grandfather said. She nodded, and they bid each other goodbye. Dick nodded to Damian pointedly before walking the man out.

“Hello,” the new girl said shyly, switching to French. Dick must have told her he could speak French. “I’m Marinette. Are you Damian?”

“Most people know me as Robin, but you are correct. I’m Damian Wayne,” he said shortly. Marinette went to say something else, but Damian cut her off. “I suppose I should give you a tour and introduce you to the others. This way.”

He walked off without another word, clearly expecting Marinette to follow. Her smile fell and she looked down at the box of macarons her parents had sent with her to help her make friends.

_So far, they’ve failed. Hopefully he isn’t another Chloe_, Marinette thought. Tikki floated up out of the pocket of her overalls and tapped her nose affectionately.

“Cheer up, Marinette! It’ll all be okay. Maybe Damian is just shy,” Tikki said. Marinette smiled.

“You’re right, Tikki. I’ll get Damian to like me, even if it kills me,” Marinette joked. She ran off down the hall to catch up to Damian before he left her behind.

~*~*~*~

Marinette was sitting on a couch in the living room alone, fiddling with a pencil. She wanted to draw, but she wasn’t feeling very inspired. She looked over at the scarf Tikki was napping in next to her and frowned. She almost woke the kwami up to ask for inspiration, but decided against it. In a fit of boredom, she slumped back and decided she would try to balance the pencil on her upper lip. She was focused on not letting it drop when someone walked into the room.

“Oh, hi!” the newcomer said, startling her. She dropped her pencil and sat up, embarrassed at getting caught. The person, Garfield, smiled at her.

“Hi,” she said, waving shyly. He came over to join her on the couch.

“What are you doing?”

Marinette blinked at him blankly, not understanding what he said. He frowned.

“Right, no English. Isn’t Damian supposed to be helping you? Where is he?”

Marinette just shrugged helplessly. Gar’s frown deepened, and Marinette looked around for a way to cheer him up. Her eyes landed on Tikki and she had an idea. She woke the kwami up gently.

“Marinette? Are you okay?” Tikki asked in French.

“Can you speak English? Could you translate what Garfield is saying for me?” Marinette asked. “I don’t know where Damian is…”

“Of course I can,” Tikki said. She floated up to Gar’s face and switched to English. “Hi, Garfield! I’m Tikki. I give Marinette her Ladybug powers! I can help translate, since Damian isn’t here.”

“Wait, Damian isn’t here?” Dick asked, walking into the room with a frown.

“No. We don’t know where he is,” Gar said. Dick frowned and left to go find his brother.

~*~*~*~

“Damian, she needs you!” Dick was lecturing. He finally tracked down his brother in the woods outside of the tower, hitting the trees with a bow-staff from the training room. He had confiscated said staff and made Damian sit on a rock and listen. “You’re the only person in the tower who speaks the same languages as her, and you’ve been avoiding her like the plague! She can’t communicate with the others on her own yet!”

“She has that fairy thing that gives her her powers, surely it can translate for her,” Damian grumbled. “I don’t see why I should waste my time with her.”

“Waste your time? Damian, like it or not, she’s your teammate! And you need to step up and at the very least start acting like she’s part of the team!”

“Whatever, Grayson,” Damian grumbled, getting up to leave. Dick grabbed him by the hood and made him sit back down. “What the hell?”

“I want to know what your problem with her is. Or is this just part of your spoilt, ex-prince of assassins nonsense?”

“She’s annoying, okay? She would not stop talking the entire tour yesterday, and she kept asking me personal questions!”

“She’s trying to be your friend, dumbass! It’s what normal people do! She’s making an effort, and the very least you could do is pretend like you’re trying, too. Even if all you do is translate for her. Who knows, when you get to know her, you might actually like her.”

“Doubtful, but if it’ll make you shut up and leave me alone, I’ll sit in the common spaces more and help translate.”

“It’s a start,” Dick conceded.


	2. Ladyklutz and Bird Brain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug and Damian spar. Meanwhile, Marinette makes friends with her other three teammates and learns a new word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Two people correctly guessed what inspired the title of this fic, meaning y'all get another chapter this weekend! This one has a couple of different time skips all lumped together for length, but it should be easy enough to follow.

Ladybug grunted as she hit the mat hard. She still wasn’t used to sparring in such a large space, and the training she’d done with her parents in their apartment was only tripping her up now. Literally tripping her. It was the third time Damian had gotten her off balance in one session, and he was standing over her with the tip of his katana in her face.

“Back on your feet, Ladyklutz. We’re not done training.”

At least he was talking to her more. Even if he was rude about it.

“Get your katana out of my face, bird brain,” she huffed, pushing his sword away to stand up.

“What are you gonna do if I don’t? Hit me with your little toy?” Damian asked sarcastically. 

As soon as Ladybug was on her feet again, he swung his sword at her again, this time aiming right for her head. She knew she was supposed to dodge, but she panicked and threw her arms up to block her face. Her suit protected her arms, but the tip of the blade hit her forehead, right along her hairline. She cried out in surprise and fell backwards again.

“That’s enough!” Dick snapped. Damian was seemingly frozen in place, staring at the cut on her forehead that was starting to bleed. Dick stepped around him and helped Ladybug to her feet, switching to French to ask if she was okay.

“Fine,” she muttered, feeling tears well in her eyes. The last thing she wanted was for Damian to see he made her cry, so she pushed past them and went up to her room before anyone else could try to talk to her.

~*~*~*~

Tikki helped Marinette clean up the cut, but since Tikki could only heal things caused by a Miraculous, she warned Marinette that it would probably scar. Marinette frowned and looked at the bandage on her forehead in the mirror.

“Maybe I’ll get bangs to cover the scar, what do you think, Tikki?”

Before her kwami could answer, someone knocked on her door. Marinette scowled at her reflection.

“Go away!” She knew it would only really help if Dick, or less likely Damian, was at her door, but she hoped if it was someone else they would get the hint. The door opened anyway, and she spun around to see Damian standing there with his hands clasped behind his back. “I told you to go away. I don’t want to talk to you, especially if you only came in so Dick would stop yelling at you.”

“I’m sorry for earlier,” he said stiffly. “I was too hard on you, and I shouldn’t have expected you to dodge that strike. I didn’t mean for you to get injured.”

“Just, please. Leave me alone.”

~*~*~*~

A few months later, the cut on her forehead had turned into a thin scar like Tikki predicted it would. Kori helped her cut her hair so she could have bangs to cover it up. Learning to style them had taken some trial and error, but she figured it out. Her parents even complimented how cute she looked when they video called after she figured out how to make her bangs look right.

Now, Marinette was sitting in the common room with Raven, Gar, and Jaime. Her English had been steadily improving, thanks to Tikki and the English workbooks Dick had bought her to practice with, so she didn’t need Damian to follow her around anymore. Which was good, because they’d been avoiding each other as much as possible since the sparring incident.

“So, Marinette,” Raven started, catching the younger girl’s attention, “what are your friends back home like?”

Apparently she was quiet for too long, because Gar frowned.

“You do have friends at home, don’t you? Didn’t you have classmates at school you would spend time with?”

“My class...we were not close,” Marinette said slowly. “There was one girl, Chloe. She’s like Damian.”

“What do you mean she’s like Damian?” Jaime asked. Marinette smiled tightly.

“She does not like me. She made making friends hard.”

“Well, we’re your friends now,” Gar said. Marinette’s smile loosened and the next thing the teens knew, they were being dragged into a group hug.

~*~*~*~

“Damian, you need to try to get along with Marinette,” Raven said, cornering Damian while he was going through a simulation in the training room.

“Why? It’s not like she likes me, anyway,” Damian scowled.

“She doesn’t like you because she thinks you don’t like her. Damian, she had no friends back home because a bully made it hard for her to make friends. Here, she can’t communicate with us very well so you’ve been the bully preventing her from making friends. If you would just talk to her you’d see she’s actually really sweet.”

“She doesn’t want me for a friend.”

“Actually, she does. You didn’t see her face when she said you didn’t like her. She’s hurting but she won’t admit it, Damian. And you’re the one hurting her. Sometimes quite literally. Do you have a crush or something? Is this one of those ‘boys pick on the girls they like’ things?”

“Of course it isn’t, and the fact that you would think it is is absurd,” Damian said, swinging his katana at the simulated enemy harder than was necessary. Raven raised an eyebrow, but chose to drop the subject for now.

“Whatever you say, Damian.”

~*~*~*~

Sparring sessions between Ladybug and Damian had gone from no-holds-barred to no weapons allowed after that first incident with Damian's katana. While Ladybug’s spotted suit was seemingly invulnerable, her face clearly wasn’t, and they were not going to risk something more dangerous happening to her. Still, her skills were steadily improving, and she was learning how to handle herself better in fights.

“You lose, Ladyklutz.”

Better, however, still didn’t mean she’d win.

“Get off me, bird brain,” Ladybug huffed, glaring up at the boy who had her pinned. His expression was far too smug for her liking. She went to say something else, but made a face instead. “Also, you smell. When was the last time you washed your suit?”

The fact that he had to think about that answer told her everything she needed to know.

“Ewwwww,” she whined, struggling under his grip again to try and throw him off her. “Damian, that’s so gross! Get off of me before you give me cooties!”

“Wait, what?” Damian asked. He frowned and loosened his hold enough for her to knock him onto the mat and scoot away from him.

“You’re so gross,” she muttered as she crossed her arms and shuddered.

“Marinette, who taught you that word?” Dick asked from where he stood with the rest of the team. She looked over and noticed Gar was desperately trying not to laugh while everyone else just looked confused.

“Garfield did...he said it was an English word for a specific type of germs that boys have that could make me really sick. He said I should use it if Damian or another boy was being gross,” Marinette said slowly, tilting her head to the side. Enough time had passed for her English to have significantly improved just from constantly using it, but she still got her words confused a lot. “Did I not use it right? We don’t have that word in French, and I’ve never heard my family use it in Chinese before, so I don’t know what it would translate to.”

“No, you used it right,” Gar said. He was barely holding in his laughter. Damian glared at him from across the room.

“We can talk about this later,” Dick said, cutting Damian off before he could say anything rude. “Who’s next?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you had trouble with the time skips...the first sparring session and the aftermath takes place just a few weeks after the events of the last chapter, then there's roughly 5 months before the conversation with Raven, Gar, and Jaime, and then another 6 months before the second sparring session. She's around 11 and a half by the end of this chapter and Damian is around 13.
> 
> Also, after she starts being able to talk to Gar, Raven, and Jaime, everything she says while with the team will be in English unless otherwise stated.


	3. Pulling Pigtails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette and Damian get closer just as things take a turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts the two-part arc that covers the events of the Judas Contract movie, so um, warning for Slade in the next two chapters. Everything stays very focused on Damian and Marinette, as in I only wrote what would change from the movie with Marinette being on the team, but I still feel like I have to warn for him because he's gross and an asshole.

A year and a half later, Marinette thought she was on better terms with everyone in the tower. Her English was as good as her Mandarin so she didn’t need anyone to translate for her anymore, unless she was encountering a new word. Damian had slowly started spending more time with her, but whenever they were in the room together, they always ended up bickering over something stupid. The most common thing they argued over was Damian taking her pencils while she was drawing or pulling out her ribbons when she let him get too close. When she finally started making the designs she would draw, he started stealing her knitting needles, yarn, pin cushions, and even fabric if he thought he could get away with it.

They usually ended up wrestling as Marinette tried to get whatever he took back. The benefit was that over time, Damian’s bratty antics were actually helping Marinette’s hand-to-hand skills improve. The downside was the team heard a lot of yelling, which usually started in English and switched to French as Marinette got more frustrated. There were also a lot of arguments about cooties, which always made the team laugh because those arguments came after they’d switched to French, but they always said “cooties” in English because there wasn't really a French equivalent. Tara was the one to finally explain to Marinette that cooties weren’t real when she got sick of the arguments. It didn’t stop them from arguing, but it did stop them from yelling about cooties. Marinette wouldn’t talk to Garfield for three days after finding out.

And then Damian decided to go off on a solo mission without warning anyone.

“Dick?” Marinette asked, walking into the living room. Dick spun around and smiled.

“What’s up, kiddo?”

“Where is Damian? We were supposed to train today. He never misses an opportunity to remind me that he's a better fighter…”

“He’s on a solo mission right now. He’ll be back once he’s gotten the information he needs.”

“Oh. He didn’t tell me he was going anywhere.”

“He didn’t actually tell any of us. He texted me last night after he left.”

“Are you sure he’s okay?”

“Marinette, don’t worry. Damian does this sometimes. He isn’t always great around people and so sometimes he follows leads on his own. He’ll be fine.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m positive. Now, if you want to spar, I could work with you for a bit? Or maybe find one of the others? I know Jaime likes sparring with you.”

~*~*~*~

**Ladyklutz: You’re late for training, bird brain. Wake up.**

**Ladyklutz: I know you went out patrolling last night but you still need to get up for training**

**Ladyklutz: Dick said you went on some solo mission? You could have at least told me so I didn’t have to get up early today, you jerk**

**Ladyklutz: Damian? You okay?**

**Ladyklutz: You missed baking Tara’s cake today. My parents sent us the recipe**

**Ladyklutz: Jaime got flour everywhere and Gar spilled the first attempt all over the counter trying to pour it into the tin _[4 images attached]_**

**Ladyklutz: Luckily we had extra ingredients and they let me take charge on the second attempt, and it worked!**

**Ladyklutz: We had to clean everything up by hand though, since the mess wasn’t caused by a Miraculous…**

**Ladyklutz: Raven and I made the boys clean most of it while we made the frosting. It was their fault, anyway.**

**Ladyklutz: Are you with Tara? She’s not here either**

**Ladyklutz: Which is fine, and it’s good she’s not here right now because the cake and the party are supposed to be a surprise, but it’s weird that we haven’t seen her since last night**

**Ladyklutz: She left around the same time you did**

~*~*~*~

Damian was furious. Tara had betrayed the Titans and was working with Slade and instead of warning his teammates, he was stuck in a rock wall. 

“Does the ladybug girl ever shut up?” Slade complained, walking into the room Damian was being held in and holding up a phone. “She’s been texting you all day. I thought you two hated each other.”

“We do,” Damian said.

“You do a good job of pretending you do,” Slade said. “She practically sent you a play-by-play rundown of your little team’s attempts at baking a cake, complete with pictures. Apparently they’re throwing Tara a little party. Shame you can’t go. It sounds like she’s going to miss you.”

“Not likely.”

“Still, I am tempted to stop by the party myself. I could tell her in person just how sorry you are to not be there. Or maybe I could just bring her here so you could tell her yourself?”

“Leave her alone, Slade.”

“Aw, you’re protective. How pathetic. Too bad she’s not much of a loner, because if I was to go grab her now your team would definitely notice her absence,” Slade said. He started scrolling through Damian’s camera roll to find a photo of him and Marinette that she had clearly taken. Damian was scowling and looking away from the camera, but his face was still fully visible in the shot, and Marinette was smiling brightly. “Does it hurt? Knowing your little family would notice her disappearance before they’d care about yours? Especially with your big brother on the team? Maybe they just think she’s cuter than you are. I’d be inclined to agree, you know.”

Damian gritted his teeth. He knew Slade was trying to get a rise out of him, and he didn’t plan on giving him anything else to work with. Slade wanted to hurt his team, and if Damian showed that he actually cared, he would only cause more damage.

“I wonder if she’d fight back if I pulled on her pigtails the way you do.”

That did it.

“If you go anywhere near her, I’ll kill you,” Damian snapped, pulling against the stone holding him in place. He almost got his hands free when Tara appeared and made the rock restraints grow around him until he was completely trapped from the waist down and all the way up his arms.

“You’ll have to find a way to free yourself for that, brat,” Tara said. 

“Unfortunately, we already have plans for her, Damian,” Slade said. “We have plans for all of you. But maybe we can bring her here and give you a chance to admit you have a crush before it’s too late. It’ll be fun to watch you fail.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what y'all thought of this one! Also please let me know if I need to update the tags to add anything specific...I've read and reread this so many times I'm not sure what's significant enough to tag anymore.


	4. You're My Teammate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette takes a minute to breathe, and Slade and Tara put their plan into action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, minor warning for Slade being a creep. Nothing really bad happens, he's just the worst so I feel like I have to warn you.

A few days after Damian went off on his solo mission, the team was on high alert. They had found photographs of all of them in a HIVE scientist’s briefcase with no explanation as to why they existed. Kori was stressed out, fully believing the team was in danger, but the others weren’t so quick to jump to the same conclusion.

Marinette was frustrated. Damian had been ignoring her messages, including the ones she’d sent him telling him he needed to come home, which confused her. She didn’t know why he wasn’t answering, but more than that, she didn’t know why it mattered to her. All they ever did was argue. He pulled her hair and stole her pencils and her sketchbook and snooped through her designs whenever he could get his hands on it. He always seemed to go way harder on her during training than any of the others, which she pretended like she could handle but really frustrated her. It wasn’t her fault she was the youngest on the team. She wasn’t even that much younger than Damian! Just a year and a half! But he still acted like she should have been a hero for longer than the almost two and a half years since she’d joined the team.

Sure, she had grown up around the Miraculouses. Her grandfather had been telling her stories of Miraculous heroes for as long as Marinette could remember. He taught her the Guardian language that she could only speak with him and her mother since no one else could understand it. She knew he wore the Turtle Miraculous, and she had loved the tea parties she would have with his kwami Wayzz when she was little. When she turned eight, he started pulling the other kwamis and Miraculouses out of the box to explain what they were and how they worked. He taught her what their powers were and explained the subtle differences between some of the ones that sounded the same to her. When she was nine, he started explaining how wearing multiple Miraculouses at once would work, and what the consequences could be if she wore the wrong two together or if she used too many for too long. Finally, when she turned ten, he gifted her the Ladybug earrings and started training her to use them. He explained that one day, she would have to track down the two missing Miraculouses. It was her job as the future Guardian to fix the mistake he had made almost two centuries before she was born. Six months later, he decided she needed more training than she was getting at home, so he convinced her parents to send her to the Titans.

She had grown a lot since her grandfather dropped her off. Every time they called, she told him and her parents about the new training moves she’d learned from Kori, or how Jaime had been trying to help her manage the side effects better since he had similar ones from the scarab, or how her hand-to-hand training outside of the suit was good enough that she could take down Gar in a no-powers match. She didn’t tell them much about Damian, but she did mention once that she thought Plagg would like him. Her grandfather asked why, and she just said she wasn’t sure. She just thought that he acted like a cat because he didn’t like being told what to do and was always grumpy. Her grandfather looked thoughtful at that, but never brought it up again.

She decided to go down to the beach outside the Tower to cheer herself up. She left Tikki asleep in her room. It wasn’t like she planned on transforming anyway. Raven was the only other person in the Tower and she was meditating, and since Marinette was barely thirteen she wasn’t allowed to leave the Tower alone even as Ladybug. She went and sat down in the sand, throwing rocks at the water the way she’d seen Tara do. She couldn’t throw them as far as Tara could, though. Her stones always skipped across the water, but Marinette’s sank instantly. She sighed.

_Just one more thing I’m not good enough at_, she thought bitterly. She flopped back on the sand in a huff. 

Something pinched her arm, and she swatted at it thinking it was a bug. Her eyes widened when her fingers brushed against something small and hard sticking out of her bicep. She tugged it out as her vision began to swim. The last thing she remembered was seeing a tiny dart in her hand before she blacked out.

~*~*~*~

When she finally woke up, she realized four things.

One, whoever kidnapped her had gagged her so she couldn’t scream for help.

Two, they also had her tied up so she couldn’t fight back.

Three, someone was dragging her down a dark corridor by the rope around her wrists. From the awkward angle, all she could tell was that the person dragging her was a very tall man.

Four, she desperately needed a plan.

The man opened a door and dragged her into a room. He swung the arm holding the rope and tossed her in front of him as if she weighed nothing.

“I brought you a present,” the man said sarcastically. Marinette twisted around and pushed herself up so she was sitting on the floor instead of lying in a heap. She looked up to see who the man was talking to, and saw Robin glaring down at her with the most furious expression she’d ever seen. Her eyes widened.

“I told you to leave her alone,” Robin growled, directing his glare at the man who dragged her in.

“And I told you I had plans for your little family,” the man said. Marinette started trying to tug her hands out of the rope. They were tight, but she didn’t think they were tight enough that she couldn’t get herself free. “Besides, didn’t you have something you wanted to say to her?”

_Keep him distracted, Bird Brain. Please._

Robin started talking to the man in Arabic. She didn’t know what he was saying, but his tone was short and irritable and seemed to anger the man who kidnapped her so she assumed Robin was threatening him. Marinette used the distraction to get the ropes around her wrists to loosen enough that she could slip her hands free and started trying to undo the ropes around her ankles. The man stepped over her to get closer to Robin, which also put her in his blindspot. She finally managed to free herself and ripped the gag out just as the man slapped Robin for something he said.

She grabbed the rope and launched herself at him without a second thought.

Marinette jumped up onto his back and looped the rope around his neck as tightly as she could. She knew she was at a serious disadvantage without Tikki, but she was just going to have to make do. She planted her feet on his back and stood as straight as she could without falling, trying to give herself more leverage against him. The man staggered backwards, away from Robin, and Marinette barely braced herself in time. It didn’t matter, though. The man reached up and grabbed the rope just behind his head and pulled hard enough to send Marinette flying over his shoulder. She hit the ground hard, and the next thing she knew he had her pinned the same way Robin usually pinned her during training. The only difference was he had a knife pressed against her throat.

“You little bitch,” the man hissed, pressing the knife into her throat just a little harder. She glared up at him, a fury Robin had never seen before in her blue eyes. “I should kill you now and make the brat watch. I already killed Nightwing.”

She glanced over at Robin, who was trying to free himself from the...rock? 

_How is he stuck in rock? That shouldn’t be possible…_

She was ripped from her thoughts by the man’s hand landing on her hip, right on an exposed patch of skin between the hem of her tank top and the waistband of her shorts. Fear set in as his thumb started rubbing circles on her skin, but she refused to let him see she was scared. She didn’t want Robin to know how terrified she was. She clenched her jaw and turned her head to the side so the only thing she could see was the wall and Robin out of her peripheral vision. He was struggling a lot more now.

“Get off her,” Robin snapped. The man tsked at him.

“You know what to say to get me to back off, Damian,” he said. Robin growled in frustration and said something in Arabic. The man tsked again and gripped Marinette’s hip hard enough to leave a bruise. She whimpered but otherwise tried not to react. “Come on, now, Damian. This isn’t the time to be cute. At least say it a language she can understand. Or maybe she’ll find out there are things worse than death.”

It was quiet for a minute. All Marinette could hear was the blood rushing in her ears as she tried to stay calm. The man applied more pressure to her hip, and this time it caused her to actually cry out.

“Je t’aime, Marinette,” Robin said quietly. Marinette looked up at him with wide eyes. 

The man smirked and got off her, lifting her off the ground with ease. He held her so her back was against the rock wall, and the stone began to grow around her until she was trapped. The man stepped away, and Marinette could see Tara standing in the doorway. It was as if all of the pieces suddenly clicked into place.

“You betrayed us…” Marinette whispered.

“Oh, look! Clever little Marinette finally figured it out,” Tara said sarcastically. “At least it didn’t take you nearly as long as it did for you to figure out cooties weren’t real. I swear, that twelve-year-old bullshit was your most annoying phase by far.”

“Why don’t we leave them alone, Tara? I think they have some things to talk about before they die,” the man said. Tara nodded, and the two teens were left alone.

Marinette started struggling against the rock, trying to see if maybe Tara left her just a little bit of wiggle room to escape with, but she wasn’t so lucky.

“What is your problem?” Robin eventually snapped. Marinette looked at him with a fire in her eyes.

“What, are you blaming me for this? Really? It’s not like I intentionally got kidnapped!”

“Why did you attack Slade like that? Do you have any idea how stupid that was? He could have killed you! You should have run while I was distracting him!”

“Run where? I don’t know where we are, and I don’t have Tikki! With Tara lurking around, I wouldn’t have made it very far before they dragged me right back here! And newsflash, Bird Brain: they’re going to kill us anyway! I just didn’t want to go down without a fight…”

“Okay, well, you’re not a great fighter, and Slade was my grandfather’s right hand man until I came around. He’s what I would have been if I had stayed with the League of Assassins! You can’t even take me down at my current level of training, so what could have possibly possessed you to make you think you could take him down?”

“He hit you,” Marinette whispered so quietly Robin almost didn’t hear her. “I’m supposed to be a hero too, and you’re my teammate and I couldn’t just let him hurt you. I had to at least try to do something.”

“Oh,” Robin said lamely. They both grew quiet, and the only sound was Marinette’s shaky breathing as she tried to calm herself down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...? What did y'all think?


	5. Did You Mean It?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fight against Brother Blood and Slade, Damian has to sort out what he said to Marinette while they were held captive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't bother rewriting the scenes from the end of the Judas Contract movie because it was pretty much just a fight scene and the only thing that would have changed was adding Marinette to the fight and I didn't feel like dealing with that.
> 
> Also, I apologize for how long this took to update. I've had it written for ages and just...forgot to post it? I hope y'all like it!

They were a little worse for wear when they finally made it back to the tower, but at least they all made it back in one piece.

Or, almost all of them. Tara didn’t survive the fight, even though she did pull through at the end and tried to help. Gar was pretty broken up about it.

Marinette didn’t talk to anyone after the fight against Brother Blood was over. She did hug Nightwing so tightly while still transformed she popped his back, but other than that she mostly kept to herself. Damian ended up having to explain what happened as best he could because she went straight to her room when they got back and locked herself in. He didn’t go into a ton of detail, but he did make sure to mention how she tried to attack Slade. Kori decided she would talk to Marinette when she was feeling better and get her side of the story then.

Hours later, Damian was in his room when he heard someone knock on the door. He frowned and got up to answer it, expecting to see Dick on the other side, or maybe Raven or Jaime. He didn’t expect to see Marinette standing in the hall in her pjs awkwardly.

“Is everything okay?” he asked. Marinette shrugged, then took a deep breath.

“I wanted to thank you for earlier,” she said quietly. “I know you only said that to help me, and I’m sorry he made you say it at all. But I really do appreciate that you did…”

“You’re my teammate. I wasn’t just going to let him hurt you,” Damian said, echoing what she had told him earlier. She smiled tightly.

“Still, thanks for lying to him,” she said. He blinked in surprise.

_She doesn’t think I meant it?_

“I know it was stupid to attack Slade like that. I should have waited to come up with a real plan that might have actually gotten us out of there safely…”

“Marinette...I know I yelled at you for that, but that’s just because I was scared,” Damian said. Marinette looked up at him with wide eyes. “Yeah, don’t tell the others, okay? They don’t think I’m afraid of anything. But I was actually impressed by you today. I thought that was really brave, even if it scared me.”

“I was terrified,” she admitted. Her hand drifted to her hip, and Damian winced. He figured she’d have those bruises for a while...he looked back up at her face and realized she was trying not to cry.

“Come here,” he said, gesturing for her to actually come into his room. She eyed him warily, and he sighed. “I’m not going to hurt you. You just look like you could use a hug.”

“You don’t hug people, Damian. You definitely don’t hug me,” Marinette said slowly.

“Do you want the hug or not? Because I’m not offering again,” he said. Marinette hesitated for one more second before she walked into his room and wrapped her arms around his waist. He wrapped his arms around her as she hid her face in his shoulder and started crying. “You’re not less of a hero because you were scared, Marinette. You attacked him and put on a brave face despite how scared you were. You didn’t let him see that he actually got to you, not until he physically hurt you. I can’t say the same…”

“You acted the same way you always do, though? Well, except for saying you loved me, but Slade made you say that so I understand,” Marinette sniffled, wiping her eyes.

“He threatened the team, Marinette. He,” Damian stopped abruptly, trying to borrow her courage to actually say what he wanted to, “he threatened _you_, and I was genuinely scared he would follow through on his threats. I showed him that I was scared, and that’s why he brought you to me instead of wherever he was keeping the others. I put you in unnecessary danger because I wasn’t brave enough to pretend what he was doing didn’t faze me. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Damian. You didn’t manipulate Tara into working with him and betraying us. You didn’t have anything to do with Brother Blood planning to steal our powers to become some kind of god for his cult. Slade may hate you for something your grandfather did, but you didn’t make him kidnap us, and you had no control over your grandfather’s choices,” Marinette insisted. “This was Brother Blood and Slade’s fault, and no one else’s. Especially not yours.”

Damian didn’t know what to say to that. There were actually a lot of ways he wanted to respond, but none of them felt right. Part of him really wanted to convince her that he wasn’t lying when he told her he loved her, but that was such a recent realization that he wasn’t sure how to get the words out. Did he even mean it like that? And what if she didn’t like him back? Sure, she’d attacked Slade for hitting him, but she would have done that for anyone on the team. They were her friends...and Damian had been a really terrible friend. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if she didn’t like him back. Another part of him, the really bratty part, wanted to pull on her pigtails or antagonize her to get their relationship back to normal. The sudden change was making him anxious. It felt like he was about to miss a really important opportunity but he didn’t know what it was.

There was a knock at the door, and Damian looked up to see his older brother leaning against the doorframe with his eyebrows raised. Marinette turned to look more slowly, as if she didn’t want the hug to end yet.

“What’s going on in here?” Dick asked. He frowned when he saw Marinette’s eyes were puffy.

“Nothing,” Damian said immediately, but the fact that he didn’t immediately jump away from Marinette told Dick he was lying.

“Damian went out of his way to save me today,” Marinette said quietly. “I just came by to say thanks.”

“He did? He didn’t tell us that,” Dick said.

“It wasn’t out of my way, Marinette. You’re my teammate, and my friend. I would have done anything to keep you safe,” Damian admitted. He realized how sappy that sounded the same time Dick tilted his head to the side, so he pulled a ribbon out of her hair. It was more for show than anything else, but it still made her huff and pull away from him. She didn’t go very far, and he kept his arm around her. “Besides, I’m the only one who’s allowed to pick on you.”

Marinette scrunched up her nose at him and reached up to fix her hair. She didn’t try to fight him for her ribbon, though. She just took the other one out and tied all of her hair back in a low ponytail. She didn’t seem to realize that the motion lifted her pj top enough that Dick could see her hip.

“Marinette, where did those bruises come from? I didn’t see anything hit your hip during the fight,” Dick said.

“Slade grabbed me...he said if Damian didn’t say something in a language I could understand, I’d learn that there are things worse than death,” Marinette said quietly, not meeting Dick’s eyes. A few more tears slid down her cheeks and she brushed them away in frustration.

“And what did Damian have to say?” Dick asked. Damian narrowed his eyes at his brother while Marinette started crying again.

“I had to tell her I love her,” Damian said shortly. Dick blinked.

“Oh,” he said. He shook his head and entered the room, then knelt down in front of Marinette. “Hey, sweetheart, why don’t you go get some sleep? You had a really long day. Kori and I are staying in the Tower tonight, so you can come get us if you need us, or I’m sure you could come get Damian if you didn’t want to tell anyone else about what happened.”

Marinette nodded and hugged Dick tightly.

“I’m really glad you’re alive,” she mumbled. Dick hugged her back.

“I’m really glad you’re alive, too,” he said. Marinette nodded and let go, then headed off to her room. Dick turned to Damian with a raised eyebrow. “So what exactly happened?”

Damian huffed and sat down heavily on his bed, waiting for Dick to join him before he started explaining. He recounted everything that had happened since Marinette was texting him about the party and Slade claiming they were only pretending to hate each other, right up to Marinette admitting she attacked Slade for hitting him. Dick was quiet for a while after he finished.

“Did you mean it? Or did you only say it so Slade would back off?” Dick eventually asked. Damian flopped onto his back with his hands over his face.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just, if I could have gotten free and killed him for touching her, I would have. And saying it kind of felt right but she didn’t believe I meant it and part of me wants her to believe it and the other part of me doesn’t want things to change and if she believed me things would change and I’m just...I’m confused. Because she’s still annoying and her fighting skills still need work and I get frustrated with her because she’s going to get herself killed one of these days and that scares me…”

“Okay...so let me ask you this: are you particularly worried about anyone else on the team getting themselves killed?”

“Of course not. Everyone else on the team can fight. But with Marinette...she’s small and clumsy and young and she’s made a lot of progress but it’s not enough for her to be able to go out on her own yet.”

“Damian, she’s more capable than you realize. Just because she can’t beat you doesn’t mean she can’t hold her own in a fight. She can take down Gar without transforming. She can take down Jaime too as long as the scarab doesn’t interfere, but the scarab actually trusts her so it doesn’t act out when they spar. Raven has been teaching her to meditate so she can control her anxiety better, and Kori and I have been really impressed with the progress she’s made in the suit too. You’re the only one who doesn’t see it.”

“I do see it...but I’ve also seen her get really hurt and it scares me because I don’t want it to happen again, but it could.”

“You need to tell her,” Dick said. Damian scowled at him, but Dick continued, “We don’t know how long she’ll stay with us. It could be years, until she’s old enough to set out on her own and track down the missing Miraculouses she told us about. But if one of them shows up before then, or if anything happens in Paris and her parents decide to bring her home...she could leave by the end of the week. Don’t miss your chance.”

Damian didn’t answer, so Dick patted his knee sympathetically and left him alone to stew on his feelings.

~*~*~*~

A few weeks later, everyone had finally healed from the fight against Brother Blood, and Damian thought he had sorted things out. He at least had a plan.

He still didn’t know if he really loved Marinette or not. He knew he had said he did, but he had to admit she was right when she told him he only said it because Slade forced him to. He knew he cared about her though, more than he cared about the others on the team. Well, maybe not more than the others, but he definitely cared about her differently. Jaime and Gar and Raven were almost like siblings to him. Marinette was...different. He figured that if he spent more time with her without the others, he could figure out exactly how she was different.

Which was why he was standing outside her door, trying to work up the courage to actually knock.

So he could ask her to hang out.

Not as a date, of course.

Just hanging out.

Friends normally did that, right?

_Stop being weird and just knock!_ Damian’s brain scolded him in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Dick’s. Still, he reached out and knocked. He heard something heavy get knocked over in the room and almost opened the door himself, but Marinette beat him to it.

“Damian? What are you doing here?” she asked, not quite making eye contact. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her hair was a mess instead of tied back in the pigtails she liked so much. He frowned.

“Were you crying?” he asked. Marinette took a shaky breath and nodded, staring up at the ceiling as if she could will the tears back into her eyes. He looked around her into her room and noticed it was unusually barren. Her bedding was gone, as was her rug and her sketchbooks and the spare fabric and yarn she used to bring her designs to life. Everything that had once made the room hers was missing. The only thing he could see that belonged to her were two suitcases in the middle of the room. One was standing upright, but the other was lying on the floor as if she had knocked it over. The only logical conclusion hit him like a truck. “You’re leaving.”

It wasn’t a question, but Marinette nodded anyway.

“The Butterfly Miraculous was activated in Paris a few hours ago. I have to go get it,” she said. “I leave in half an hour. It’s just enough time to say goodbye to the team.”

“Marinette, you don’t have to go. This isn’t your fight. It’s your grandfather’s mistake, he shouldn’t be sending you to fix it. Not on your own,” Damian argued.

“I won’t be alone. He found me a partner...a Black Cat. He’ll balance out my Miraculous and hopefully give us an edge over whoever is wielding the Butterfly,” Marinette said. “And besides, you blame yourself for Slade even though he was your grandfather’s mistake, so you’re kind of a hypocrite for telling me not to fix my family’s mistake.”

“Do you even know who your partner is?”

“No. Yéye wouldn’t tell me. He said it was safer if we didn’t know each other’s identities.”

“Marinette, that’s absurd. Could you imagine if the Titans didn’t know each other’s identities?”

“The Titans aren’t Miraculous wielders, Damian. It’s different. The Butterfly’s powers mean that anyone who knows my identity could potentially tell the Butterfly and put me and the people I love at risk. So because the Cat can’t know my identity under any circumstances, I can’t know his either because it would cause an imbalance between us and make us more likely to make mistakes.”

“Well, the team can come help you. I’m sure Kori would approve. You’ll finish this fight a lot faster if we’re there too.”

“No. This isn’t the team’s fight. Besides, none of you have the right protections against a Miraculous. You’re all skilled fighters, and I know you think I’m the weakest link in the team, but at least my Miraculous makes me mostly invulnerable. I can take a hit from whatever powers the Butterfly gives it’s monsters, but you guys can’t, and I don’t know if the Cure would be able to heal you. It couldn’t heal Tara.”

“But you can’t just leave—”

“I don’t have a choice! My Miraculous is the only one that can purify the akumas and Tikki won’t work the same with anyone else after choosing me. My parents already enrolled me back in my old school. The school year starts tomorrow, meaning I start there immediately. They’re telling people I was in New York with my father’s cousin to learn English. Everything is in place for me to return, and Yéye is ready to open a portal as soon as I’m done saying my goodbyes.”

The two glared at each other, both doing their best to hide their pain. 

Marinette desperately wanted to stay in Jump City. The Titans were practically family, and she didn’t want to go back to her old class and have to start all over trying to make friends with them when they didn’t want to be her friends the first time around. She didn’t want to have to get used to a new hero’s fighting style when she already knows how the Titans fight. And as much as she and Damian argued...she didn’t want to leave him yet. She had argued with her family to let her stay and let someone else fight this battle. To let her parents fight instead of forcing her to give up everything at thirteen and start fighting a mysterious opponent to get a Miraculous back. To give out the Monkey or Horse or Rabbit or Dragon instead, because those powers are more straightforward than her Lucky Charm. But in the end...it was a matter of family and responsibility and Marinette couldn’t go against that no matter how much she wanted to.

Damian, on the other hand, was lost. Dick had warned him not to hesitate. He had told him weeks ago to say something, and what had Damian done? He hesitated. Now she was leaving, and she refused to let any of them help her. She was getting a new partner who was probably going to be as inexperienced and untrained as she was when she first arrived in Jump City. She had to go fight a battle that wasn’t hers before she was ready with some imbecile that’ll be even less prepared for this responsibility than she was. His brain wouldn’t stop showing him potential headlines of her demise.

_Beetle vs Butterfly: Ladybug Hero Squashed!_

_Cat Causes Partner’s Death, Paris in Shambles._

_Hero Duo Officially a Couple—wait, what?_

Damian hated emotions. He hated the way the different things that could happen to her hurt. He hated that he was worried, and he hated that she was leaving. And so he did what he always did when his emotions became a distraction: he pushed them away.

“You know what, klutz, whatever. Go back to Paris and meet your Cat and make new friends and fight your family’s fight. I don’t really care,” Damian said, his tone flat and his expression neutral, if not somewhat irritated. “Just don’t get yourself killed. I don’t want to be saying ‘I told you so’ at your funeral.”

Marinette rolled her eyes and pushed past him to head to the common room, but stopped at the end of the hall when she realized he wasn’t following her. She looked back at him over her shoulder, and he barely noticed the tears in her eyes.

“I won’t die if you don’t, bird brain.”

Damian didn’t respond, so she went to go say goodbye to the others while he went to his room.

The next time he saw her, Ladybug was the subject of some amateur blog written by a fangirl who was apparently in Marinette’s class at school. Her first fight had gone smoothly, and Paris was excited about the heroine from the Teen Titans who moved to their city to protect them and defeat Hawkmoth. Her <strike>sidekick</strike> partner wasn’t completely incompetent either, but Damian knew he was far from capable. He could only hope the kid was a quick study.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay if anyone is confused because Slade said he killed Nightwing in the last chapter...Slade _thought_ he killed Nightwing in the movie. He shot him in the chest and Dick fell into the river. But Dick had a piece of wood under his jacket that stopped the bullet. So he didn't die, Slade just thought he was dead. He ended up tracking them down at the end and causing enough of a distraction that the team could get free and win the fight.
> 
> Also, for the cliffhanger ending...this is going to be a bit of a slow-burn fic, I hope you guys realize that. The biggest conflict in this story is that nobody is communicating properly, because so many things would be fixed if the characters would just talk to each other. But alas...that's not how life goes and these characters are all stubborn and have trust issues so...have fun with that! XD


	6. It's Not Like We're Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette settles back into life in Paris, Damian totally isn't jealous, and Adrien and Plagg make their first appearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the misunderstandings begin! Or...continue, lol. This whole fic is about misunderstandings and communication failures, y'all should know what to expect by now. 
> 
> Like how I've been doing, this is just going to brush over canon stuff and just talk about the way things are different in this AU, focusing on Marinette and Damian, so there won't be a lot of detailed conversations or include a lot of canon ML characters for a while. Eventually that'll start to change as I edge out of canon stuff and things actually start changing for our two dorks, but there's still a ways to go before that happens.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

If anyone ever asked Damian Wayne if he read the Ladyblog to keep track of his ex-teammate, he would say no.

He would be lying, but he would say no.

In truth, Damian hated the Ladyblog. He hated that it was clearly written by some star-struck teenage fangirl who must have followed Ladybug’s adventures with the Teen Titans before she moved back to Paris. He hated that said fangirl clearly didn’t consider the fact that there was a real person hidden under the mask who had actual feelings and desires and goals outside of being a hero. And he absolutely hated the fact that it kept trying to push the two Miraculous heroes into becoming a couple.

Not because he was jealous, obviously. He just thought it was unprofessional for teammates to date.

Dick and Kori were clearly the exception.

Still, despite how much he loathed the Ladyblog, he found himself refreshing the page whenever he had free time. He had to make sure she didn’t get herself killed. He was told it was incredibly rude to tell the dead “I told you so” at their funeral, and his father would crucify him for acting in such a manner. So, naturally, he had to make sure she was okay.

He knew the others still talked to her sometimes. They updated him when she would call, or if she sent an email or a text message. Dick even tried to get him to reach out and talk to her again, but Damian couldn’t fathom why he would ever do that.

It’s not like they were friends.

If they were, she would have reached out to him directly.

Right?

~*~*~*~

When Marinette first moved back to Paris, she would update the Titans on everything as often as possible. She called them every few days. Sometimes it was to tell them about an akuma attack, or to tell them how things were going at her school, or to talk about her friends. Sometimes it was to hear about the battle they’d fought in that she’d heard about online and to make sure everyone was okay. Other times it was just because she missed them. And when she was feeling really inspired, she showed them the new suit designs she’d been brainstorming for them. It didn’t matter how busy she was, she would stay up to talk to them as soon as she could. Damian was almost never there for those calls, but she pretended like it didn’t bother her.

It’s not like they were friends.

If they were, he would have reached out to her directly.

Right?

~*~*~*~

“God, Tikki, Chat is so annoying! It’s like this is all a game to him! Did Plagg not explain that this is a serious responsibility? That we actually _have_ to defeat Hawkmoth to get his Miraculous back?” Marinette ranted as she paced a hole in the floor several weeks after her return to Paris.

“I’m sure Plagg told him, Marinette.”

“Then why isn’t he taking it more seriously? He’s going to get someone hurt! He’s going to get someone killed!”

“You know, you sound just like Damian,” Tikki observed. Marinette flopped on her chaise and screamed into her pillow in frustration. Tikki just shook her head and did her best to console her Chosen.

~*~*~*~

“She’s even more beautiful in person, Plagg,” Adrien gushed. He had pulled up photos of Ladybug on his laptop and was staring at them with stars in his eyes. “I knew she was amazing when she first started fighting with the Titans, but she’s gorgeous in person. I can’t believe I can fight with her! Maybe I can impress her enough to make her fall in love with me.”

“Kid, she’s been at this hero thing a while. She clearly takes it very seriously. Maybe instead of trying to date her, you should actually be helping her,” Plagg admonished. “Why don’t you pursue bakery girl instead? She seems sweet.”

“Marinette is nice, and she’d make a good hero, but she’s not Ladybug. My Lady is just...incredible,” Adrien said. “Even if she is a little too serious...but that’s why I have to lighten the mood! If I don’t remind her to live a little and take things easier, she’ll end up like Nathalie or Father and that would be criminal.”

“Adrien, are you even listening to me? This is serious!” Plagg snapped, but Adrien was too engrossed in the photos on his screen to pay his kwami any mind.

~*~*~*~

The one truly good thing about moving back to Paris was that Marinette’s creative side flourished. She started designing more and entered a bunch of design competitions, including a hat contest that Gabriel Agreste himself hosted. She won the hat contest, and as for the others...if she didn’t win one she placed very highly. Not to mention that within weeks of moving back, she got the chance to design a pair of Eiffel Tower glasses for Jagged Stone, who was her favorite musician ever. He adored the glasses and asked his assistant Penny to get her contact information for him so he could hire her to design more things for him in the future. They quickly became like family to her, and Jagged took to bragging about his talented little “niece” that was designing all of his clothes and album covers.

Not long after that, she started working with Clara Nightingale, too. The first time was as a dancer in a music video, but when her Uncle Jagged heard about the video, he sent Clara her contact information as well with glowing reviews of her designing abilities. Clara called her the next time she needed an outfit for an event, and soon she was like family too.

Between designing for Jagged, Clara, and her classmates’ band Kitty Section, plus the little designs she was toying with for the Titans, Marinette always had something to work on when she wasn’t doing homework or being Ladybug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? What do y'all think about the route this is going? Is it what you expected? Do you know what you're expecting?
> 
> Just a heads up, this fic will have ML salt. Mostly class and Adrien salt. So if you don't want to read that, I recommend you stop reading here because the next chapter introduces Lila and mentions Oblivio, so the next chapter will be heavily salted.


	7. Deleted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distance makes the heart grow fonder...or at least that's what people say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this has been sitting in my drafts for like a year and I just never posted it. For that, I apologize. I finished writing a few chapters just before the ML fandom blew up with people criticizing salt writers, particularly Maribat writers, for ship/character bashing and having too much salt in their fics, and at a time when my mental health was really bad, that triggered my rejection sensitive dysphoria from my ADHD and totally killed my inspiration.
> 
> That said.
> 
> I want to try to finish this fic soon, like within the next few weeks soon, because I have an idea for a spin-off within this AU where after Marinette is reunited with the Titans, she and the team play Among Us. And I would just write it now and upload this as I go but I'm going to be including two characters in that fic that I haven't established as Titans in this AU yet, so I want to at least get to that point and then I'll consider posting the spin-off early. We'll see.
> 
> Once again, I'm really sorry to how long I made you wait for this. Hopefully school won't totally kill me this semester and I can get work done on this to wrap up the story the way I wanted it to go. I appreciate all of your comments and if I don't get around to responding to each one on the last chapter like I usually do, know that I did read them and just got distracted by school stuff. 
> 
> Last time I updated, I teased Damian's reaction to the Ladyblog and specifically Oblivio, so we'll start to see that here from his POV and in the next one from an outsider's perspective. I don't want to do a double update tonight in case people miss chapters, but I'll plan on updating again tomorrow.
> 
> That's enough from me...enjoy the chapter!

It was a few months before Marinette stopped reaching out as often. She never told the team why, so they just assumed she was busy or moving on with her life. All they knew was she slowly went from calling them several times a week, to once a week with regular emails, to once every couple of weeks with a weekly email, to one call and maybe one or two emails a month, to one email a month and a call every couple of months, to mostly radio silence. They kept up with the Ladyblog on occasion, but that didn’t detail every akuma fight and they didn’t get Parisian news channels to keep an eye on things. They sent her an email reminding her to let them know if she needed anything, and all they got in return was a simple “Will do.” They were worried, but no one was as worried as Damian was pretending not to be.

Just like he was pretending he wasn’t obsessively refreshing the Ladyblog in one tab while lurking on her Instagram account in another. He didn’t have an Instagram account, nor did he care to get one, but he knew she had it so he was checking it for any information as to why she wasn’t talking to them anymore.

Any information that she was in danger.

Any information that she needed them to go help her.

Her Instagram wasn’t helpful. Her classmates’ accounts were more revealing...students that she’d mentioned being friends with suddenly stopped posting pictures with her. When he noticed the change, he scrolled back through their posts to see how abrupt the change was. It was slow, but he noticed one girl with weird hair was replacing Marinette in other people’s photos. Marinette made sure her feed never showcased that, instead keeping her posts focused on her family and her designing, but he did notice the distinct lack of friends in her recent photos.

_Would she tell us if she was being bullied?_

~*~*~*~

Lila arriving in Paris shook Marinette more than she cared to admit.

Part of it was how easily the girl lied about being best friends with Ladybug after they met while Lila was supposedly living in Jump City for a year.

Part of it was how easily she convinced Marinette’s friends to believe her.

Part of it was her threat to isolate Marinette if she didn’t start going along with her lies, and how quickly she actually made it happen.

The biggest part of it was how it cataclysmed Marinette’s confidence.

Marinette had learned to be more confident in herself with the Titans. Between Damian pushing her to be better and the rest of the team reassuring her that she was a good hero and belonged with them, she thought her confidence as a hero was nearly unshakeable. She even thought her confidence as Marinette was rock-solid...at least she did until Lila started twisting everything that happened to make herself seem sympathetic while making Marinette look like a bully.

She couldn’t turn to the team. Damian would never let her live it down if she called for help in dealing with such a weak enemy. Lila was just a schoolyard bully, for crying out loud, and Marinette was Ladybug. It should be a piece of cake to defeat Lila, but for some reason, she couldn’t. She couldn’t stand up for herself. She didn’t want to accidentally go too far and hurt Lila, no matter how cruel she was. Someone like Damian could handle Marinette defending herself, but Lila wasn’t Damian. Lila couldn’t really fight, so Marinette didn’t fight back.

Not when Lila turned the class against her.

Not when Lila turned Adrien against her.

Not when their cruel words turned into physical assaults, like tripping her or knocking her books from her hands or messing with her locker.

She just kept her head down and put up with it.

She didn’t tell anyone, either. If she told her family, they would tell her to just deal with it until she retrieved the Butterfly, or think she was making up reasons to go back to Jump City. If she told the Titans, she knew someone would go undercover and come help her...but the only one who would be in her year at school was Damian and she was positive he wouldn’t want to do that. Besides, she didn’t want to be a burden. They’d protected her and taken care of her for so long; it was about time she took care of herself.

Still, on the really bad days, the ones where the class pushed her to her breaking point and Hawkmoth sent his butterflies after her, she was always tempted to send a message...just so they would know…

**To: Bird Brain**

**I almost got akumatized today.**

She always stopped typing there. If she decided to hit send, was it better to explain everything at once or to leave it until after she knows if he cared enough to actually answer? He would probably be upset with her for not explaining everything upfront. He liked to know all the details as soon as possible so he could know exactly how to act. It drove him nuts when Dick or Kori would announce a mission without telling him all the details, which Marinette thought was extremely hypocritical considering he didn’t like telling anyone anything.

She always deleted the message and went out on patrol instead.

~*~*~*~

Damian hated the Ladyblog with a burning passion. 

Video after video, fight after fight, Chat Noir was recorded flirting with Ladybug and asking her out on dates. 

Video after video, fight after fight, Ladybug would turn him down and ask him to focus. 

Every single time, the Ladyblog owner would report it as some star-crossed love story, talking about how the balance between their Miraculouses clearly meant they were soulmates.

Damian knew better.

He knew Marinette’s grandfather had chosen someone to work with her. He knew Marinette’s grandfather had made mistakes before. He knew this Black Cat was another mistake. All he did was make her uncomfortable.

She didn’t advertise it, of course. She was too annoyingly kind for that. But Damian knew her. He knew the difference between her banter when she was comfortable and the banter between her and the Cat. He’d been on the receiving end of her comfortable banter enough times to recognize it. It was sassy and sarcastic and funny, though he never told her that. With the Cat, she was less sarcastic and more focused, but still friendly. She was trying to make it work, but Damian just knew she was carrying her entire world on her shoulders and the Cat was doing nothing to help her.

There was one report that almost made him abandon the Ladyblog completely. It was the day an akuma called Oblivio caused the heroes to temporarily lose their memories. The attack wasn’t the focus of the article, however. After all, how could you write a report on an attack no one involved remembers? No, the focus of the article was a photo.

A photo of a kiss.

Ladybug almost looked happy in the photo. She was holding that mangy cat’s hand and his arm was around her waist and she actually looked like she’d cuddled into him in the follow up photo. It infuriated Damian to no end.

Anyone who paid any amount of attention to their dynamic could tell she didn’t like the Cat. She tolerated him, maybe cared about him to some degree, and, knowing her, most likely considered him a friend. But she didn’t like him like that. She’d told the Cat as much several times. She’d gone on record saying they weren’t a couple. She insisted that she was just there to get the Butterfly Miraculous away from Hawkmoth and keep people safe until she could.

Still, the Cat persisted.

And still, the Ladyblog and the rest of Paris’ sorry excuses for journalists insisted she was lying, she was wrong, she was just hiding her feelings.

Damian knew Marinette. She didn’t hide her feelings.

He pulled out his phone and typed out a message.

**To: Ladyklutz**

**Want to talk?**

He wanted to keep it simple. He didn’t want to admit anything in just one message. He didn’t want her to know he’d been keeping track of her, especially since it wasn’t because he missed her. If he implied he’d been reading the Ladyblog, he knew she would get the wrong idea. The more he stared at the message, though, the angrier he got. 

He deleted the message and went to train instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...was it worth the wait? Let me know! And I promise that the next chapter will be up by the weekend. My goal is tomorrow (Wednesday, 9/23) afternoon or early evening, but if I get distracted studying it could be late. <3


	8. Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes things get worse before they can get better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, another update! 
> 
> In case you're having a hard time keeping up, at the start of this chapter Marinette is around 14 and a half and at the end she's around 16 and a half, almost 17. I know my passage of time markers can be a little vague sometimes since they pretty much just say a few months, but chapters 6 and 7 take place within the first year and a half or so after Marinette moved back to Paris.
> 
> This one has a lot more Chat salt in it, so just be aware of that. If that bothers you, please just stop reading because I'm not planning on redeeming Chat in this fic.
> 
> Also, trigger warning: this chapter mentions abuse, outside of the mentioned bullying from the last chapter. Again, if that's too much for you, please take care of yourself. I don't plan on having any of the abuse actually be onscreen, but it will be mentioned a few times in this fic starting in this chapter. If you want, I can give warnings for it on specific chapters where it's directly referenced or talked about, and give summaries at the end notes for those chapters if you'd like to continue reading and just don't want to read about that. I'll do it for this chapter, and if you want me to continue leave a comment so I know. I'll also be adding it to the fic tags if I don't have it there already.

“What is his problem today?” Jaime asked after a particularly grueling training session with a very pissed off Damian. “I swear the brat wonder was trying to kill me. Or kill someone, anyway.”

“You didn’t see?” Gar asked. Jaime raised an eyebrow, so Gar took out his phone and pulled up a blog they were all familiar with, though didn’t check very often. He scrolled to the most recent article and handed it to his teammate to read. “Ladybug apparently kissed the cat after a fight.”

“No mames, guey,” Jaime muttered, skimming over the Ladyblog. “You think he actually reads this?”

“He definitely reads it,” Gar said with utmost certainty. “We all know how attached he was to her. They may not be talking anymore but that doesn’t mean he’s not keeping track of her. He’s just too stubborn to admit it.”

“So, the brat’s jealous?” Jaime asked.

“Maybe. That kiss surprised me too, though...every time we’ve talked, Marinette either hasn’t said anything specific about Chat Noir or she makes an off-hand comment about him not being very professional before changing the subject. Don’t you think she would have told us if she liked him?” Gar asked. Jaime shrugged.

“Maybe, maybe not. It’s been a while since we heard from her,” he pointed out. “Maybe things changed?”

“Maybe.”

~*~*~*~

Chat Noir changed tactics after the Oblivio fight. A few negative, anonymous comments on the article got enough attention that Alya had to disable anonymous commenting completely and turn on comment moderation in order to do damage control, but it was too late. The anonymous commenter pointed out how weird it was for Ladybug to kiss Chat Noir after a battle when she’d been nothing but professional up until that point. They also pointed out that Chat continuously asking her out despite her saying no would be considered harassment where they were from. Some of the Ladyblog’s audience latched onto that and used it to launch their own criticisms of the cat-themed hero, while others demanded the heroes come out and state the truth about their relationship status. 

As if that would end the constant debates.

Ladybug refused to comment on the photo or answer any questions about her love life.

Chat quietly began to convince people that he and Ladybug were soulmates, and that they’ve agreed to wait to make their relationship official until after Hawkmoth was defeated. When the cameras weren’t rolling and the two were alone, however...that was where he redoubled his efforts. If she thought he was flirty before the comments, after the comments he was so much worse. Always invading her personal space and finding excuses to touch her; he touched her hip once and was immediately thrown off the Eiffel Tower. A few civilians saw him fall and pulled out their phones to ask what happened, so he said they were just playing a game to pass the time while on patrol. He didn’t touch her hip again after that, though he did come close. 

After almost a year and a half of this, he finally suggested sparring sessions in an empty warehouse. Ladybug agreed because she thought he genuinely wanted to improve and take things more seriously.

It was fine for a few months, until he started getting violent.

~*~*~*~

“Yéye, we have to take the Miraculous away from Chat,” Marinette insisted while at her grandfather’s apartment for tea one evening. Her grandfather frowned as he sat down across from her.

“Why? I thought you said you thought he was starting to take things more seriously,” Fu said.

“Well, I was wrong,” Marinette said softly. She tugged on the long sleeves of her jacket, adjusting them to be sure her bruises weren’t visible. She didn’t have many, but the ones she did have she knew weren’t from akuma attacks.

“Marinette, I know Chat is inexperienced, and I know that isn’t ideal, but I couldn’t find anyone else in Paris that had as much potential to wear the Black Cat ring as he does. You said you could handle this, and that you would give him a chance.”

“I’ve given him nearly three and a half years of chances, Yéye! He’s barely made any progress and with the akumas getting more difficult, I’m really worried we won’t get the Butterfly _or_ the Peacock back from Hawkmoth. If I had progressed as slowly as he’s been while I was with the Titans, they would have sent me home!”

She knew that wasn’t the full truth. She knew it wasn’t even a big part of the truth. But the part of her that knew the full truth wasn’t letting her admit it. Her grandfather had refused to listen when she wanted to stay in Jump City. He refused to listen when she wanted to ask the team to come to Paris with her. He refused to listen when she wanted to switch schools or even just classes to be in a better environment. She may not have told him about her class and Chat actually hurting her in their training sessions for the last three months, but she had enough evidence to believe he wouldn’t listen if she tried. Besides, if she told him the full truth, he might decide she wasn’t capable enough to continue being Ladybug and protecting the city, and Tikki was her best friend. She couldn’t bear to lose her.

“Marinette,” Fu started, then sighed and set down his tea. “If you’re worried about the akumas and getting the Miraculouses back, I’ll let you start dual wielding full time instead of just in emergencies. You can pick one to use with the earrings to give yourself some extra help, and in an emergency you can come get a different one. Would that make this easier?”

Marinette shrugged. She knew it wouldn’t stop all the problems, but the right Miraculous could actually help her. She agreed, and went to the Miracle Box to choose her new Miraculous.

“Remember to get one that will fit your needs and work well with the earrings, Marinette.”

She chose the Horse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that in this fic, Chat isn't just in love with her. She's his celebrity crush and he's obsessed with her, and he's taking it way too far. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Marinette is just feeling really trapped and isolated and alone. She's under a lot of pressure and doesn't feel like there's anyone she can safely open up to yet.
> 
> Chapter Summary: Damian gets really angry over the Oblivio article and leaves anonymous comments on the Ladyblog, starting a comment war. Alya turns off anonymous commenting and turns on comment moderation, so she can choose what comments get posted. Chat gets sneakier about his "flirting" (read: harassment) and after a few years becomes violent when they spar together to train while on patrol. Marinette is afraid to tell her family the truth because she's worried they won't listen to or believe her since they haven't in the past. She's going to start dual wielding the Ladybug and Horse Miraculouses full time so she can have more help in defeating the akumas (the side effects mentioned in canon aren't as severe for her when it's just two so you don't have to worry about me making Marinette super sick or anything...she's going through a lot right now but I'm not going to kill her, I swear).

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a set posting schedule in mind for this, but I have a lot written so stuff should be posted like once a week or when I remember, lol <3
> 
> Yes, Damian is a brat in this. He'll eventually grow out of it, but it's going to take a _while_ so buckle in.


End file.
